Rensselaer Republican, Volume 24, Number 14, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 3 December 1891 — DOUSES WITHOUT NAILS. [ARTICLE]

DOUSES WITHOUT NAILS.

The Queerly Constructed Homes of the Carib Indians at Mosquitia. New York Home Journal. On the coast of Mosquitia, a recently created department of the republic of Honduras, there are few houses better than the watla of the Carib or the Waika Indian. The frame of the watla rests upon eight or nysre posts firmly set in the ground, and are usually of Santa Maria wood, which resists decay. In the short crotch at the top of. the post lies the pole. 5 or 6 inches in diameter, which is the “plate” on which rests the long, slender rafters which meet high above the ground. The rafters are held in place by light poles which run around the ends and sides of the roof. Cross-pie? s serve to strengthen the whole. Not a nail, not a bit of iron of any kind, is used in building this, cottage, but the whole frame is held together by bajucos or tie-tie vines, that are found in unlimited quantities in every forest, and that, whep green, can be used as easily as cords could be for lashing the nieces together. As they dry they snrink, and bind the whole most firmly. While the men are putting up the frame of the house the women are preparing the covering,, which is made of a kind of leaf called “monkey tail.” This they attach to strips some ten feet long and an inch wide, split from bamboo, the whole making a fringe about 16 inches wide. Beginning at the lower ends of these* rafters, these fringes are lashed firmly in rows extending entirely around the edge of the roof. The secondrow laps over the first and the third over the second, and so on, until the house is covered by a thatch which will turn the heaviest rain, and will last eight or ten years. The walls of the house are made of the trunks of papta palms, three or four inches in diameter. These are set upright and dose together in a shallow trench, and tied with bujuoos or poles running from post io post; or bamboos cut in pieces of suitable length are flattened into broad sheets or . “crickeries,” and fastened upright to the. frame, thus making a smooth, clean and attractive wall, through which the refreshing breezes draw steadily from morn ing until night. The daughter of a New York Jud"e has for more than two years made her home in such a watla, tip? walls being draped with muslin and 4h'e ceilings with pink mosquito bar in Slaits, radiating from the center. he Japanese decorations harmonize with the walls and the shelves of bainboo, filled with choice book’s. Moreover, there is a floor of pine lumber, pictures on the wall, an easel in the corner, and tables when baskets of oranges, mangoes', ba nanas and other luscious fruits du their season, tempt the visitor.